1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an insulin-gold nanocluster, a pharmaceutical composition for treating diabetes comprising the insulin-gold nanocluster, and a method for detecting adipose cells in a tissue by using the insulin-gold nanocluster. More specifically, the present invention relates to a fluorescent insulin-gold nanocluster, a pharmaceutical composition for treating diabetes comprising the same, and a method for detecting adipose cells in a tissue by using the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Fluorescent nanomaterials and fluorescent nanoclusters have been developed and intensively studied, because of their unique optical and photophysical properties. In recent years, many studies discovered that fluorescent nanomaterials and fluorescent nanoclusters also have potential as replacement for conventional organic dyes in optical cell imaging. Among the various nanoclusters (NCs), gold nanoclusters are the most well studied due to their low toxicity and high biocompatibility.
Metal nanoclusters typically comprises several to tens metal atoms and the diameters thereof are generally in nano-scale, and especially about 1 nm. In addition, the nanoclusters are comparable to or smaller than the Fermi wavelength of conductive electrons, so the nanoclusters may carry quantum-mechanical properties to show promising signals on biomedical imaging.
Recently, some studies relating to Au nanoparticles encapsulated in certain enzymes have been reported. For example, US 2011/0165689 has been developed to synthesize gold nanoclusters with BSA, and the obtained BSA-gold nanoclusters can be applied to several devices, such as nanosensors of Hg2+, CN− and H2O2. Although this patent has disclosed the protein-directed gold nanoclusters, there are few studies on bioactive protein-directed gold nanoclusters that can still preserve their own biological role.
Hence, it is desirable to provide bioactive protein-directed gold nanoclusters, for example, enzyme-directed gold nanoclusters, which still have biological activity. Therefore, the obtained bioactive protein-directed gold nanoclusters can be not only used as biosensors, but also applied to medical uses.